End of the Season

Many are getting to their end of this ice season, it is bitter sweet to see it go, but has been a good season none the less. Some may still find fishable ice, but open water is calling and time to start fishing the long rods.

Some trips are just to get revenge on the fish, because the last time you were fishing there, they won out and hard to leave it at that. Found a location that has good quality pumpkinseeds and just had to give it one more shot.

This cove has a rock cropping that is quite wide so started drilling holes on the deeper side in 14 FOW. Marking fish wasn’t a problem this time around, but the ones that were caught were on the smaller side and knowing there are better sized fish, need to keep moving.

Shallower water was producing smaller, moving out further deeper in our search, was proving what and how the day was going to go. Fishing old holes wasn’t productive at all and drilling new holes on every move is how the fish wanted it.

Using the Clam Drop XL in Wonder Bread, and a motor oil colored plastic, the active gills were higher off the bottom as any marks low, weren’t interested in the presentation. Once you could get a couple of fish on the screen, there would be more coming, and the competition would begin and catching a number of fish wasn’t difficult.

The magic water depth was around 17 feet and each hole that was drilled, especially away from older holes, there were always fish there. You only needed to jig for a couple of minutes and would know if the fish are using that area.

There were bass and crappie mixed in but mainly the pumpkinseeds dominated the area and the fish were up to the 9-inch mark. Was a fun last trip for the season, ice was around 20 inches thick but honeycombed almost through, won’t last long once the process starts.